Seventh Year Potions Lesson 1- Term 4

[Desideria Tapia]

Late afternoon, and a wonderful day it was. The sun still shone through the puffy clouds that littered the sky, though the temperature dropped a degree or two when the wind decided to pick up a little bit just after lunch. This was supposed to be a fun lesson, but she supposed they would see how it went. The Seventh years she'd had the previous year were a bit temperamental, and she hoped her sixth year class from the year before wouldn't turn to be like the seventh years she'd had. In her opinion, her sixth year class from the year before had gone rather well, a few mistakes here and there, but nothing that wasn't expected...well, Marcellus' potion had gone a bit haywire that one time, but other than that, nothing had been out of the ordinary.

This year, she hoped they'd be trying a few things on their own, with her permission of course. The more adventurous one was willing to be, the more likely they would succeed in learning something, but safety came first. As long as they asked, she could tell them whether the ingredients would be stable enough or not, and possibly she wouldn't know and would have to allow them to experiment, at another time of course. Too many people being hurt at once never looked good.

Sitting at her desk, tarot cards out, playing one-sided rummy, Desideria flipped through the cards trying to win the game out. She'd only ever found one good thing to do in Divinations when she'd taken it, and that was how to get a good rousing card game going with tarot cards. Everything else in that class, other than the potions and ingredients left out to create meditative processes were beyond her. Sometimes even the tea was out of her reach.

On the board behind her was written:

Welcome to N.E.W.T. Potions II
Gregory's Unctuous Unction
Professor D. Tapia

[Tristan Howard]

Potions. What a torture class.

He never really understood why Potions was a class or why it was a neccessary need to have it. But, eh, what ever. He made his way towards the Dungeons and into the class. Noticing, he was the first person inside. What a WooHoo. Not. He walked in and took a seat and waited for the others to come in. Really not much to say, but it was Potions.

[Drew Thornton]

Drew hated this particular class. It wasn't that he sucked a potion making, far from it. After a little help from Hiro his first year, and a few tricks of the trade from both his mother and grandmother, he had actually beomce a pretty good potion maker.

But of course Tapia wouldn't know anything about that. She had spent all of her time with her own house members who, let's be honest, didn't belong in the class in the first place. At least when Raynor had played favorites, the Ravenclaws knew what they had been doing. Drew wasn't a fan of favoritism, even... especially when he was the favorite, but he really hated unfairness.

The Head Boy sulked into the class, tossed his backpack under the table and waited patiently for class to start. There was no point in putting forth any effort in this class. All the Academy looked at were his NEWTS and letters of reference... and he sure wasn't going to ask Tapia for one of those.

[Layla Jimenez]

Layla had managed to get through the day without too much trouble. She was finding that she was behind, as she had feared, in some classes, but well up to speed in others. As she got closer and closer to the dungeons, she felt the familiar sense of anxiety she'd been having all day each time she approached a classroom she was about to enter. But by the late afternoon, she was starting to master it. She took a breath and walked through the open door.

She nodded shyly to the Professor, and made her way to the table behind Drew, offering a slightly nervous smirk as a greeting. She wasn't sure what to expect. When she had run into him in Diagon Alley, he had mentioned that she played favorites. But Layla's encounter with the Professor at the Music Festival had been quite pleasant. So was she to expect someone who gave unfair treatment, or the nice lady that had rid the stain off her favorite slacks?

[Drew Thornton]

When Layla came in and took her seat, Drew turned and gave her a smile. He had been bummed about most of his classes, but had forgotten Layla was back and would be sitting in most of his lessons again. It wasn't that he was bored of the regulars: Hiro, Charlie, Tristan. It was just nice to see someone new.

"You good to go in here?" he asked, knowing she had been concerned about being behind. He didn't think she'd have any problems. She had always been a good student from what he remebered, and had passed her OWL, so obviously, she was okay.

[Layla Jimenez]

Layla had already laid out a quill and some parchment and seemed to stare at them for a bit as if making sure they weren't going anywhere. She looked up at Drew who was smiling at her and giggled at herself. She knew she was being slightly ridiculous, but for the time being she just couldn't help herself. "I don't know yet," she admitted, grinning at her classmate. "Ask me again in 20 minutes if I'm still breathing."

[Drew Thornton]

Drew gave a small laugh back, not wanting to disturb the quiet class setting too much. He was pretty confident she would be fine, even if it was NEWT Level II they were doing.

"Well, you know you can always holler before you get to that point, right?" he reminded her. "I usually team up with Hiro, but if you want to work with us, you can." It would be kind of neat to work with her actually. They hadn't always gotten along when they were younger, but things seemed to be going okay between them. Perhaps he was starting to figure out girls after all? Doubtful...

[Layla Jimenez]

Layla let out a small breath and nodded her head, "Yea thanks, I might do that." There was no harm in joining a group. Drew and Hiro were more than competent and she'd follow their lead until she felt comfortable again. She still wasn't sure why she was so anxious. Potions used to be had favorite and best subject.

Layla smirked as a distant memory emerged in her mind. It also involved a Potion, Drew and herself, but it wasn't as pleasant. Actually, if she remembered correctly, they had been arguing. For a second her thoughts lingered on their friend Gwen, and Layla wondered where she was and if she was ok. "Hey," she inched closer, this time whispering. "This was the Professor that you said kind of... preferred.. certain students? I mean... I met her before school started... she seemed alright."

[Drew Thornton]

Layla and Drew had done a lot of arguing, but that wasn't anything new to the tall seventeen year old. He had a bad habit of pissing off the Ravengirls and Layla and Gwen had been no exception.

He had to smirk at her question. True, it had been his own perception of the woman and Layla would make up her own mind, but still, he couldn't help but tease. "Of course she did," he told her in a low voice so the professor couldn't hear and a crooked grin so Layla would know he was joking. "Just means you're lined up as her favorite too."

[Layla Jimenez]

Fingering the ends of her quill, Layla tried to contain her giggles as Drew teased her. "That's not even funny," she told him, though she couldn't stop herself from laughing softly. "I don't know, she sold me a potion and we talked about class a bit. She seems to like teaching, I guess." She remembered being shocked that she had inadvertently met her new Professor at the Festival, was was a nervous wreck. But by the end, she had calmed down and they had had a pleasant conversation.

"Regardless, she knows I screwed up a 5th year potion," she admitted, rolling her eyes, but now laughing at her misfortune after the fact, "so I doubt I can be considered a 'favorite',"

[Drew Thornton]

"Pffft..." Drew scoffed, making a face at her lame reason why she couldn't be Tapia's favorite. "Heck, screwing up the potion is probably what pushed you over the edge."

He gave a small shrug and a smile. He couldn't argue that she knew her stuff which at least was better than a few of the professors they had around. "It's probably different meeting her outside of school than sitting in class with her all day," he admitted, still keeping his voice low. How uncool would that be if Tapia knew they were talking about her like that?

[seanna]

Potions was by far, one of her favorite classes that Seanna had somehow passed, but she was unsure of today's class. The love potion that she had left behind in the what used to be the seventh years dorm room over the summer, but was now her own dorm room, was still a cauldron full of glop, and she hadn't had much time to add or do anything to the so-called potion since she had been back from holidays.

So far, the potion was just brown, sloppy mud with magical properties in it, slopping all over the tip of the cauldron and onto her bedroom floor, adding brown spots to the all ready colorful array of colors on the floor. All though, Seanna had bought some different potion ingredients from Italy and Diagon Alley, she hadn't had a chance to try them out since classes had started back up.

Even then with the ingredients she had got, Seanna wasn't certain that the mud potion could turn into something useful. Unless of course, if it was used to make something out of mud that looked sparkle. Seanna sighed as she entered into the potions classroom, taking a seat in the middle. A trip to the library would probably help her find some solution to her muddy problem, but for now, she'd focus on today's potion and try not to make a blunder out of it.

[Caleb Walker]

Caleb walked lazily to Potions. He didn't mind the dungeons, although they weren't exactly his favourite of places. Still, he took his time walking to the classroom, his bang slung over his shoulder with his notebook, quill and all the potion-y things he was going to need for this class. As he neared the room, Caleb straightened out his tie and gave his hair a quick fluff.

Looking around, Caleb saw the somewhat familiar faces of a few of his classmates, but one face stuck out in particular. The only girl in the room besides the professor was that extremely pretty girl he'd met that day in the pub. A grin spread across Caleb's face and he made his way across the room to her and Drew.
"Hey," Caleb greeted the two, "Mind if I sit?"

[Desideria Tapia]

Sorting through her cards, the game was surprisingly going quite well. Tarot cards worked as well as a pack of regular playing cards and they had nicer scenes. Though, she had to admit, a few of the cards were not really anything too appealing. Swords, Dragons, a few other things, she couldn't quite tell what was supposed to be a bad omen or which was a good telling. Though, it didn't matter, she was playing rummy, not trying to read the cards that wouldn't allow her to gain information off of them anyway.

As her class started filling up, the woman glanced up now and then, sending a warm smile in return to Layla, the young woman she'd met during the Music Festival. It was good to see she had decided to make it to her class; truthfully though, she'd had no ill thoughts on the girl not attending. With her enthusiasm from their small conversation, it would be hard to imagine the young woman not entering the class.

After a quick finish of her card game, she started shuffling around flipping through a few pages and sorting things out, when the bell tolled the class was set to begin.

"Good afternoon class," she smiled, glancing over the faces in the room. "Good to see all of your faces back from the holidays. Today we're going to be brewing a potion called Gregory's Unctuous Unction." It was a potion she'd always found to be interesting. Making another believe something that most likely wasn't true if it was being fed to you. Interesting indeed. It only went to show how strong potions had come to be. "So to begin, who can tell me about it? What is it? What does it do? What are the most likely circumstances for this potion to be used?"

Most answers would suffice for her last question. There were a number of situations it would be called for to be used.

(Class has officially begun. You may post as already having been there or as coming in late, but remember, with tardiness comes consequences)

[seanna]

Having been through Apothecary Shops in both Italy and the one in Diagon Alley, Seanna had gotten familiar with each potion ingredient, plus she had picked up some new potion books here and there from both shops and had actually skimmed through some when she got a chance. That was how she somehow recalled the potion that the Professor was actually talking about, it had something to do with a effect that makes somebody actually believe you. Or more to the point, believe that you were their best friend.

Seanna had made a face when she had read that part, thinking it was extremely lame that someone would want to use a potion to gain a friendship. It was kind of like the Imperious Curse that they had learned in DADA. Kind of, only, Seanna suspected that like any Potion, the person would probably have to drink a lot of it to make them keep believing they were your best friend.

"It's a make-believing potion" Seanna spilled, finding her voice and thinking that that sounded not quite right. "Once the potion has been given to a person, it's easier for the giver to make the other person believe that they are their very best friend" Again, Seanna screwed up her face thinking it was a totally lame potion, but thinking it would probably be handy for someone if they wanted something out of that person.

"If you were a normal person, you wouldn't really have a circumstance where you would use this potion..." Really, what kind of person would use this certain potion? "However... if you weren't so normal, I 'spose it could be used if you didn't want to do something and therefor needed someone else to do it... because, after all, you are claiming to be their best friend and best friends do do things for each other. I 'spose in that circumstance the potion could come in handy" Again, Seanna cringed at the idea. It was horrible, horrible potion. One that she would probably never, ever use.